Glitterbeat Records – Ifriqiyya Electrique
A sensational band from Tunisia that offers amazing rhythms and sounds enriched by French influences. This is most certainly not a ”world music” project, still less an ethnomusicological one but a wild process of improvisation and re-composition that brings traditional instruments face to face with computers and electric guitars. This extraordinary sextet employs traditional instruments such as the tabla or tangura alongside the raw sounds of a distorted guitar in the style of Jimi Hendrix or the pulsating bass in the best tradition of Primus. Ifriqiyya Electrique’s concerts are hypnotic journeys to the depths of the desert and the Sub-Saharan, trance-like sounds along with atmospheric vocals stay with anyone who has ever experienced this phenomenon live.